Thoughts, reflections and ruminations as I figure out what to do with myself since I retired

Thursday, November 17, 2016

The Baby, Part Three

Lavender Hill Farm on Vashon Island

This is where I started the search for my sibling, safe in "our" farmhouse on Vashon Island with supportive friends. If you haven't read the beginning of this story, click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2Long time readers of this blog know that once a year I meet with a small group of women bloggers who I met online through our blogs. Three years ago I shared with them the story of my "lost" sibling. Several of these friends have their own adoption stories."Are you going to search for your sibling?" they asked.I told them I didn't know, but in my heart I knew that eventually I would search. I told them I needed to talk to my dad first.A year passed and I finally gathered up a pile of unidentified photos that I had saved from my mother's estate. I hauled them back to California and on a sunny San Diego day my brother, Leigh, with his own pile of unidentified photos, and I sat down with our father to go through them. We spent a lovely morning hearing him tell stories. His memory is sharp and he filled in a lot of blanks and shared new tales of family history. In late afternoon we had come to the end of our stacks of photos. I took a deep breath and said, "Dad, what we really want to know about is the baby."He knew right away what I was asking and said, "You know I apologized to your mother. We had decided that we wanted to try to keep our marriage together for you three kids. I felt that I wouldn't be able to accept the baby. It would be a constant reminder to me. I was wrong and I told your mother that later. Babies make their own love. You love them for who they are."My mother had an affair. They gave up the baby to try to save their marriage.I told my father what I remembered of the day the baby was born and he said, "It wasn't a boy; it was a girl."I went home to Oregon the next day. I thought about the sister that I had always wanted to have. I knew I would find her some day and I tucked away the story thinking I'd save it for when I started searching. This October I went back to Vashon Island to meet with my blogging friends for our annual writing retreat. The topic of adoption came up in conversation and my friend Linda said, "I'll help you search for her if you want." That very evening, while the other three bloggers slept, Linda and I sat in our pajamas on her bed with our laptops and started the search.